Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?

I remember as a child watching this really awesome Earth Day special on television with Robin Williams and Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser, M.D.). Mother Earth (who I think was played by the mom on "Married with Children") was really sick - in the hospital actually. The show focused on all the things we can do to help Mother Earth recover. Well, that had to have been ten years ago, and sadly I haven't seen another special like that. What's worse is that the planet seems sicker than ever. So I really wonder if "reduce, reuse, recycle" is going to go down as just another doomed (though great) slogan.

Everyone can reduce and reuse things, but I wonder more and more about the availability of recycling opportunities. It seems like plenty of items are recyclable, but are people actually able to recycle them? I've lived several places in the past few years, and I have yet to find a recycling center that accepts everything that's recyclable. There was a good facility in Auburn, AL - but as plastics go it still only took #1 and #2. Why not the rest? I dropped some plastics off in Birmingham one time, but the facility still didn't accept many items. Even in large cities like New York and Chicago I've witnessed recycling discrimination - or even heard stories of recyclables ending up in the same place as trash. In many rural areas recycling is still almost an alien concept.

So what is a church that wants to be green to do if it exists in an area with few to no recycling opportunities? Should churches try and start their own programs? Should church members pressure local governments to put programs in place and offer the churches as places where people can learn more about recycling? I would love to hear input from anyone who has dealt with this issue as it relates to the church. I'm hoping there are some creative success stories that can teach us all.

Green Book Review

Recently I started reading a book that perfectly addresses the concerns of this blog. The book is A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming by Michael S. Northcott. In addition to being Professor of Ethics at the University of Edinburgh Northcott is a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church. The book is impressive in so many areas as it's clearly the product of considerable research in both scientific and religious disciplines. Northcott frequently employs passages from Jeremiah to remind readers that care for the environment is inextricably bound with care for all created things, and injustice to the Earth affects all the Earth's inhabitants.

One of the most striking issues addressed is the considerable ethical violation that takes place when developed nations conduct business in ways that produce more pollution in developing nations who end up suffering for our (people who live in developed nations) luxury. Northcott offers this example:

Most products that are sold in Europe and the United States are no longer made there. Instead they are made thousands of miles away in often miserable working conditions in countries which are prepared to sacrifice air quality, forests, rivers, and oceans to toxic pollution in the quest for rapid economic growth. But ironically Western politicians often point to the increases in CO2 emissions which fuel the factories that now make the products on behalf of Western corporations in countries like China and Brazil as a reason for refusing to reduce their own CO2 emissions (35).

These and other lessons in the book have caused me to question the liberal tendencies I have, especially as they relate to the economy. Or perhaps I should say, reading this book has caused me to reassess ideas such as progress in the realm of economics and technology. Unbounded growth clearly has not brought a better life for all; when any suffer for the lifestyles of some, I find it hard to say we are progressing. So, again the Church must reclaim its prophetic role in a world that usually only asks "Can this be done?" and seldom asks "Should this be done?" I thank Michael Northcott for his work of teaching us some of the right questions to ask.